Raising Men: My Spy
by SMKLegacy
Summary: Three women compare notes on the men they love. Amanda King Stetson talks about the spy who finally grew up.


TEASER:  Three women compare notes on the men they love.  Amanda King Stetson talks about the spy who finally grew up.

DISCLAIMERS:  The characters herein don't belong to me; I've borrowed them from Warner Brothers, Shoot the Moon Productions, Paramount, Bellisarius Productions, and Aaron Sorkin, et al.  I promise to return them relatively unscathed and to cherish them as though I made multi-millions on each episode.  I also hereby thank the actors who brought and bring these characters to life in their fictional worlds, because they are the ones who have provided the depth and motivations for these _dramatis personae_.  

RATING:  PG-13

FEEDBACK:  Always welcome, but spare me the flames, please.  Even New England gets warm in the summer.  E-mail in my profile or through the review feature in the story pages.

SPOILERS:  Everything in _Scarecrow and Mrs. King_; bits and pieces through "Inauguration, Part II:  Over There" from _The West Wing_ and "Standards of Conduct" from _JAG_.  And yes, I do know that _The West Wing_ and _JAG_ don't exist in the same timeline, but that's what artistic license is all about.  This is set in my _Operation Esther_ universe.

COMPANION PIECES:  Lady Donnatella and Raising Men:  My Statesman, posted on _The West Wing_ page, and Lady Sarah and Raising Men:  My Sailor, posted on the _JAG_ page.

=====

I haven't decided if I like this part of my job or not – being the senior American intelligence liaison to these international information sharing sessions.  I'm usually the only woman in a roomful of men who each think he's James Bond incarnate.  That I'm married to James Bond incarnate seems to escape their collective and individual notice until I flash the beautiful diamond wedding set I've worn for nearly 16 years.  Granted the first six months were only behind closed doors, but…16 years.  Amazing that Lee and I have been married for 16 years and everyday I fall a little more in love and he grows up a little more.

My young driver turns to me with a smile when we reach the gates of the Russian Embassy at 7:10 a.m..  He's got the look that tells me he's thinking about the time Lee and our late boss, Billy Melrose, broke into the then Soviet Embassy in search of the one man who could save Lee from a deadly variation of the plague bacterium.  That little escapade got added to the basic training regimen for agent candidates about 5 years ago after the Russians declassified the experiment that led to the failed field test.

If Lee and Billy hadn't succeeded, I wouldn't even have had the chance to wear these rings in secret for the first six months, and no one except perhaps Billy and my mother would ever have known just how much Lee Stetson meant to me at that time.  

I have to think happier thoughts or this day is going to drag far more than the nine and a half hours it's scheduled to be already.  So I smile at my driver and open my door to get out, only to be hailed from behind by a familiar, grating voice.

"Amanda!"

I turn, and sure enough, the voice belongs to Undersecretary of State Clayton Webb, who is actually a very senior official with the CIA.  "Hello, Clay."

What grates on me about Webb is that he is perfect.  No matter how badly he messes up – and I know how badly he's messed up in the past – he comes out smelling like a rose and looking like Wilbur the pig after he won the special award at the fair in _Charlotte's Web_.  No pun intended.

I do, however, like him despite this perfection, so I'm not in the least offended when he kisses my cheek and offers his elbow to me as we ascend the steps to the entrance.  "Please tell me you found a translator," I beg.  When I talked to him late yesterday, he hesitated – which told me that he hadn't yet had the guts to call in the favor he said would guarantee us the very best on such short notice.

"Of course I did, Amanda," he smiles, and it's the same charming smile that Lee used to give me when we first worked together and he wanted me to go away.  I hope someday that a woman captures Clayton's heart, because I really want to see if he grows up to be as wonderful as my spy turned out.  "Did you find us a secretary?"  He holds the heavy door open for me and smiles toward the guard at the security desk.

I shrug; that task belongs to the National Security Council and I am confident that someone in the West Wing of the White House can find a competent secretary with the proper clearance for the day.  "Dobriy dehn," I say to the guard, who nods and asks me in Russian to open my briefcase for him.

A few minutes later, Clay and I are inside the conference room where the meeting will be held, and we're soon caught up in the ubiquitous polite chitchat of any international gathering.  I notice that Clay has stayed with me, which is somewhat unusual, but I'm sure he has his reasons.  Knowing him, if I were to ask it's because he once heard Lee say something to the effect that "Amanda can get information out of a steamed clam just by rambling.  People will say anything to break her train of thought."  Since it's more true than not, I didn't protest to my husband when he said such things – but it is a mark of his burgeoning maturity that he hasn't – to my knowledge – said that in at least 5 years.

The room falls silent abruptly; I'm expecting our host and convener, but the newcomer is a stunning U.S. Marine Lieutenant Colonel in dress greens who makes her way smartly toward Clayton and me as the conversations around resume.

"Good morning, Mac," Clay says as soon as she's within eight feet.  "Do I need to hide or did you leave your shadow behind?"

The colonel smiles with a look of confusion.  "You mean Harm?  Clay, why would you think you need to hide from Harm?"

"A certain lieutenant's broken jaw in Australia comes to mind," Clay answers, rubbing his own jaw, then his nose.  "I barely escaped with my nose in tact after I talked with your boss yesterday as it is."

I'm having lunch with this woman.  I need to know about these men – I know enough about military etiquette to know that this "Harm" isn't the same person as her boss – who make Clayton Webb nervous.  And I want to know what that look in her eyes when she said "Harm" is all about.  I'd lay odds "Harm" is a man who needs to grow up.

"Where are my manners?" Clay asks himself.  "Amanda Stetson, this is Lt. Col. Sarah Mackenzie, your translator for the day.  She usually goes by Mac.  Mac, this is Amanda Stetson, Deputy Director of Counter Intelligence for the Agency."

"You don't mean the CIA," the military officer states as she extends her hand toward me.

I smile.  "No, he doesn't.  It's a pleasure to meet you, Mac."

Clayton has to be the center of attention again.  Just like another man I know had to way back when…  "Amanda, you're really going to be impressed when I tell you more about Mac…" he teases.  Mac and I each lift an eyebrow his way; he interprets my look correctly – either that or he's afraid of the Marine, which is equally likely – and continues.  "Remember the Bosnian Gypsy?  Well, you're looking at her."

Okay, three stars for Webb today.  Back in the early days of NATO intervention in Yugoslavia, Clayton Webb had the single most reliable sources of information from three sides of the conflict.  We all assumed he was laying a trail of misdirection by insisting that he had only one source who could travel amongst each ethnic group without detection, but now that I look at Sarah Mackenzie, I can easily see how it could be that he was telling the truth all along.  "Gosh," I begin, trying to find the words to thank the young woman before me.  "You have no idea how many lives you saved with what you did."

"Thank you," she whispers, embarrassed.

It occurs to me then that she's earned at least three more decorations than she's wearing on her uniform, and I am forced to wonder if she even knows she's won the Intelligence Star twice over and a Silver Star, as well, on missions so classified I seriously doubt the Commandant of the Marine Corps himself knows.  "No, Mac.  Thank you.  So, are you with the Marine Intelligence Office?"

Her laugh makes heads turn.  "No, I'm the Chief of Staff for the Navy's Judge Advocate General."  She pokes Clay with her elbow.  "And Clayton's favorite 'please, Admiral Chegwidden, I promise there will be no danger this time' emergency translator."

"You heard me?" Clay squawks, rubbing his nose again.  I'm guessing that this Admiral Chegwidden was the one who threatened to hurt his proboscis yesterday.

"Grow up, Webb," she commands, echoing my thoughts exactly as the volume in the room again drops.

This time, the woman in the doorway is a tall, beautiful blonde who looks painfully young and shy.  Her smart suit marks her as American, and Clayton must recognize her because he excuses himself from us long enough to greet her and bring her over.

"Amanda Stetson, Sarah Mackenzie, please meet Donna Moss, the woman without whom Josh Lyman can't unlock his office."

I've met Josh Lyman once; I keep tabs on him closely through my own channels.  His night of terror in Rosslyn gives us a common experience that has marked us each for life – literally.  I have to force myself even now, almost 16 years later, not to run my hand over the fading scar on my chest that marks the difference between life and death.

The day I met Josh, he kept muttering about needing Donna to do things during the meeting but she couldn't come because she wasn't cleared for it.  That was five years ago during the President's first campaign when I got suckered into doing the national security briefings for the two candidates and their respective staffs.  Donna must be a whiz kid because she can't be a day over 26 now.  "Delighted," I say and take her hand.  "I don't stand on formality, so please call me Amanda."

"Donna," she says, and a bit of the hesitancy in her eyes clears as she returns my grip with more assurance than I would have guessed.

"Mac.  Welcome to the dark side, Donna," the colonel says, also gripping her hand.

This time, the smile is broad and lopsided.  "I work for Josh Lyman, Mac.  This can't possibly be any darker."

=====

When we take our first break, Clayton thankfully excuses himself from the rest of us and I am able to sit with these two young women who I think would be wonderful to have as friends.  

Mac speaks beautiful Russian and Farsi and passable Arabic in addition to at least three other languages I've heard her use today; if she's half as good a lawyer, I pity her opponents in court.  I'm also dying to know about Bosnia, but even more, I really want to know about this "Harm" who scares Clayton.

Donna may be an "administrative assistant" by title, but she's firing on all cylinders and synthesizing information faster than anyone I've ever met.  She's managing three documents on the laptop – one a verbatim transcript of the meeting, one a log of comments Clay and I are making in asides, and one that she's making of her own observations.  The few that I've been able to read thus far have been insightful and cogent – and remind me quite a bit of the way that I approach this information, which, according to my husband, is "torturous but ultimately infallibly logical."

"That's a beautiful ring, Amanda," Mac says, and I know that I'll have to wait to hear her story because I'll have to tell mine first.

"Gorgeous," Donna affirms.  "So, tell us about him."

I find myself starting at the very beginning, with the stranger in the white jacket who handed me a package and told me to get on the train and give the package to the man in the red hat.  We were young and naïve back then, nearly 20 years ago now, and both of us had some maturing to do.  Lee much more than I, of course.  How did I raise my spy to be the husband and father he is now, after such an inauspicious start?

I tell my new friends about the first few months, when Lee wanted nothing to do with me and I thought the whole spy business was a lark.  About the first time the Soviets held me captive in a case of mistaken identity, and how that was the first time I knew that the playboy agent had a deep caring streak hidden under the layers of callused pain I could see but not penetrate.  When he held me in his arms there at the golf course and admitted he was scared, too, I decided that I wanted to be his friend – to help him find the human being he tried so hard to keep buried so he could do his job.

I am just about to tell them the story of how he carried me down a flight of stairs when I'd been poisoned by an East German agent when the convener gavels us back to order.  I see the looks on the two women's faces and know I'll have to continue my story during the next break.

=====

"So Lee is your own personal James Bond," Donna says to me as though she had read my thoughts from long before she arrived.  "That is so romantic."  She holds her coffee cup protectively and I wonder if she does that because Josh is too lazy to get his own coffee each morning.  There must be a story there, too.

"Actually, it is, isn't it?" I reply, pausing to take a bite of the wonderful Russian breakfast pastry I snagged from the refreshment table before I came back to our designated table.  "It took three years to happen – "

Mac chokes on her black coffee, but manages to splutter a few words between coughs.  "Only three?  God, I'm past the six-year mark."

She's up at lunch.  "Yeah, three years."  They get quite a kick out of the story of the ship of spies and our undercover marriage, especially when I tell them that the kiss we shared then was when I knew that I wanted Lee in my life permanently.  "But I also knew then that I would have to wait for him to figure it out," I say with a smile, and both women nod as though they've been there – or perhaps are there right now.

Clayton comes over to tell us that the convener has given us another five minutes for our break, then at looks from all three of us that not even the densest of men could possibly misunderstand saunters off to find more welcoming conversationalists.  I never said Clay was dense, and I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere but I won't pursue it.  Instead, I continue the romantic story of raising my spy.

"We had known each other for about two years when a series of Lee's ex-girlfriends were murdered," I begin, thinking back to the day I found out that my partner and best friend had not one but four little black books.  It was during that case that Lee finally opened up enough to let me in permanently by telling me about the death of Dorothy, the first woman he really loved.  And that case was the one that allowed him to exorcise the demon of guilt – and at the end of it, he gave me roses.  

"And now," I say as the meeting begins to come back to order, "he gives me roses at least once a month now."

From the looks on the faces on either side of me, neither of these women has received roses from her man in quite a while, if ever.  And I know that flowers from the wrong man, however flattering, just aren't the same.

=====

We get another unexpected break before lunch after Mac catches several severe translation errors in a document that was obviously translated from Farsi to Russian to English for the purposes of this meeting.  Whiz that she is, she marks up a copy of the Russian and a copy of the English for one of the Embassy secretaries to amend during the break before she turns her attention back to Donna and me.

"So, Amanda, tell us more," she pleads with a smile as she rubs at her temples.

So I do, sketching out a night in a swamp during which I nearly admitted to Lee – to whom I was handcuffed all night – that I loved him, then the next day when I confused him no end with a reply of "not exactly" to his attempt to explain away the near-kiss.  And both women sit spellbound while I tell them about the days Lee and I spent on the lamb from the Agency as our friends tried to clear our names after that foolish Lisbon Variation of the Peacock Dance.

"Wow," Donna says when I pause to take a breath.  "You've had so many great adventures."

I smile.  "That's only the first three years or so.  Lee proposed to me after he rescued me from a terrorist named Adi Birol," I went on, telling them about the zap gas that allowed us to spend twenty uninterrupted minutes wrapped up together on the bed.  The story of our on-the-sly wedding elicited jealous sighs.

It doesn't occur to me until I've started to tell them about our honeymoon that Donna has first-hand experience with gunshots.  I remember when Josh was shot that both Lee and I had nasty flashbacks, mostly because Josh's injuries were almost identical to the ones I survived, and I tell her this as she dabs at her eyes with a tissue.

"I don't know why I still cry when I think about it," the young woman says in apology.

The look Mac and I share says we both know why from very personal experience; Mac answers.  "Because it's very hard to think about someone you love almost dying, even when you know he's survived."

Donna nods and I think it may be the first time she's heard that particular validation for her feelings.

The secretary who is working on the documents has had computer trouble, so we're told to plan on a slightly shorter lunch (I'd settle for 45 minutes, but they'd planned an hour and a half and are now saying an hour and a quarter) in exchange for this longer break in the morning.  It's only 10:50 and thus far, the only fast part of the day has been these breaks.  Ugh.

"So, what's happened since you got married?" Donna asks, recovered somewhat from her own memories.  "Any children?  More adventures?  Don't leave us hanging.  Pictures?"

I'm a mother – of course I have pictures.  I tell them about my sons from my first marriage, now Lee's sons as well since long before Joe died a few years ago.  "Philip is engaged to be married this spring," I say, hoping that my disbelief isn't evident in my voice as I show them the formal portrait he and Heather had taken.  "Jamie is a captain in the Marine Corps.  He's working on his doctorate in biochemistry and waiting for his soul mate to grow up."  The snapshot of Jamie and Marlena is a year old, but he's still extraordinarily handsome.

I can't tell them where he's getting his advanced degree – not even Clayton knows of the existence of the facility at Ft. Monroe, Virginia – but I can tell them how it is that my 27-year old (I'm still in denial about that, too) son has been waiting for a girl ten years his junior for 14 years…this week, actually.  

"Oy," Mac says when I finish my first-hand account of the chemical terrorism perpetrated on the State of Israel back then, "we had to write day-by-day analysis of the political and military response to that as it happened in one of my political science classes in college.  I remember thinking that the kidnapping was a stroke of genius that went awry due to blessedly bad intelligence until it was revealed who exactly had been taken."

Donna is searching her memory and comes up with something meaningful as Mac finishes.  "Jamie and I are about the same age," she begins, "because I remember that my friends and I thought he was a dreamboat and very brave for someone in our grade."  She laughs.  "His was the first picture of someone my own age that I ever cut out of _People Magazine_."

"So it's the little girl he protected that he's waiting for," Mac muses.  "That is so incredibly…mature…for a man."

All three of us laugh before I go on to show them a few more pictures.  I tell them about the assassination attempt in Poland that never made the news; about the young father-to-be who died in my arms in a back alley in Beijing while our family friends Francine Desmond- and Ian Marlowe were caught in the protests in Tian'anmen Square; about our subsequent search for and extraction of the pregnant woman who later died giving birth to our daughter Kim Xi; about the far more normal adoption of our son Quan Lee; about the promotions we've each received along the way and how much Lee especially hates the lack of field work.  And, most importantly, about the ways that Lee has matured over the years.

"For instance," I shrug, hoping that I'll get a reaction from my friends, "just within the last year he's stopped glowering at every man who tries to talk to me."

Do I ever.  Both women dissolve into helpless fits of laughter.  I can understand why – I'm still amazed that Lee's given up showing his jealousy after nearly 20 years.  Mac's known this "Harm" guy for about six years based on what she's said thus far, and Donna's worked for Josh Lyman for five.  They have a loooong way to go before the jealously goes underground.  I have no idea how long before it goes away because Lee's certainly hasn't; he just doesn't show it to the men of whom he's jealous.

=====

Clayton decides he needs to talk to Mac for a few minutes when we first break for lunch, so I take the time to sit with Donna and go through her observations on the proceedings thus far.

"I know it's presumptuous of me…" she begins, but I've already skimmed the first page and wave her into silence so I can focus on the remaining two.  I'm not surprised that she fidgets over my shoulder; she's probably developed that habit from five years of close association with the only man in Washington who could power the Capitol Building on his own if we could harness him to a treadmill.

When I'm finished, I turn toward her so she can see how serious I am.  "Donna, when you're done at the White House, I expect a call from you.  These are brilliant."

"Really?"

Now I want to hear her story, too.  How does a woman this beautiful and this smart not know that she's capable of great things?  Probably because someone crushed her spirits just when she had the opportunity to soar, and now that she is soaring, she can't quite believe she's done it for herself.  "Really, Donna.  Surely you've had other opportunities to show this kind of initiative."

She blushes a beautiful rose color and stammers something unintelligible.  I'll ask her again later.

Mac comes stomping back to us and I don't think I'm imagining the steam escaping her ears.  "That man is the second most annoying man in the world," she grinds out as she picks up her briefcase.

Since I know she's referring to Clayton Webb, I rise to the bait and ask – in surprised unison with Donna – "Who's the first?"

"Commander Harmon Rabb, Jr., Naval Aviator, JAG Lawyer, and all-around pain-in-the-ass."

The girl from the White House and I exchange a knowing glance.  "Your turn," we say together again, and the three of us make a quick escape from the conference room into the embassy's main dining room, where a traditional Russian lunch has been laid for us.

Over the next hour, Mac tells us the saga of her tumultuous seven-year relationship with the aforementioned Harmon Rabb, Jr.  Along the way I get fabulous blackmail material on Clay – particularly confirmation that Mac's commanding officer once broke his nose and the knowledge that Clayton Webb really does have a heart, proven in his rescue of Harm's brother Sergei.

Mac and Harm are a more complex version of Lee and me.  Insecurities and distrust that my husband and I were able to put into perspective have been made larger than life between Mac and her sailor; where Lee had the look-alike in Leslie, it sounds like Mic Brumby was Mac's attempt at a substitute for Harm, right down to the build and the coloring.  

Donna and I get a good laugh at Lt. Roberts' expense when Mac tells us about the time the young man stepped between an angry Brumby and a jealous Rabb; now I understand Clay's fear of Mac's shadow.

We're eating dessert now and Mac sighs as she begins to tell us about the aftermath of Harm's crash and her called-off wedding.  "Aside from Harm's immaturity, our biggest problem is our horrendously bad timing," she begins, and I think briefly about that plague virus and the Soviet Embassy break-in again before I focus on her again.

"We finally tried to start from scratch, but Harm and I have too much history, both rich and dirty, to let it go."  She tells us about a night in Afghanistan when she slept in his arms, of the day on which Lt. Roberts nearly died and Harm cried in her arms, of the hope she has now after a talk with Rabb just last week about this crazy baby deal they have.

"It sounds," I venture, "as though both of you have done a lot of growing up in the past year and a half or so."

"I think so," Mac acknowledges.  "I think for us, we have to grow up together.  But I always seem to be the one pulling."

I reach out to pat her hand, feeling particularly maternalistic at the moment.  "It gets easier, eventually."

"Promise?" Donna asks.  "'Cause sometimes I wonder about that."

"I promise.  Lee and I will invite you all over some night and you'll see."  And with that, we're called into session again.

=====

We're now ahead of schedule, so we vote to take only one break during the afternoon session and get out earlier.  I've just discovered that the three of us women are meeting our respective man at the same bar, so I think we'll just get Donna's story out of her before we arrive.  Lee will be there early, that I know, so I can't count on any time at the bar.

Mac snorts.  "I told Harm 1630 in hopes he'd be there at 1700."  She goes on to explain that her sailor isn't known for on-time arrivals.

"Josh had better not be there at 4:30," Donna warns him with a shaking finger from several miles away.  "He's in a meeting until 5:00 and is supposed to get a cab to the bar."

"Maybe his meeting will be out early," Mac replies, but the look on Donna's face tells us that his engagement is not the type to run ahead of schedule.

"If he arrives before 5:00, it means he screwed up, he will blame me, and I will have to fix it.  Then he'll apologize in some cute but ineffectual way."

And that, ladies and gentlemen, seems to be the crux of Donna's relationship with Joshua Lyman.  

The relationship between Donna and Josh seems to be a lot funnier than Mac and Harm's.  It may simply be that Josh comes across as more lighthearted than Harm, or it may be that the actual age difference between Donna and Josh makes no difference because he is so adolescent in his behavior toward his assistant.  Really – how many ways can a man find to break up a woman's dates?  And how many wrong women can he find to date in the mean time?

Whatever the case, Mac and I have laughed through most of this break and I think we're ready to get this meeting over with so we can get on with crafting these friendships.

=====

"Ladies, it's been fun," Clay says as the gavel comes down.  "As much as I'd like to walk you to the bar, I think it's best that I leave now to get a jump start on what tomorrow may bring."

"You're just afraid Commander Rabb will be there early," Donna accuses.  She only met Clay at one of the balls last week, it turns out, but she certainly has his number.  Maybe if Josh never comes to his senses…

Webb draws himself up to his full height and puffs out his chest.  "I most certainly am…"  The falling pitch at the end of his elongated "am" earns him a peck on the cheek from Mac.

"Wimp," she teases.  "**I** can take Harm."

"**You're** a Marine," Clay fires back, and then with a wave of his hand he's gone.

"That man is…" Donna's voice trails off.

"In need of someone to raise him properly?" Mac ventures.

I murmur my agreement with a chuckle before Donna picks up her story with some of the less stupid things Josh Lyman has done in his five years as Donna's boss.  Like the beautiful inscription in his first White House Christmas present to her, the recommendation to buy a knockout dress because she looked really great in it, and his promise to put her face on a stamp someday.  Like willingly singing Rodgers and Hammerstein in the office when she needs a laugh.  Like taking her seriously when she notes something that no one else caught, and letting her take the credit for saving the day.

Like letting her take him to the hospital when his PTSD got out of control – and that, I can tell you, is an indication of just how much she means to him.  That he means so much to her is obvious in the fact that she didn't quit the day he insulted her taste in men.

Hmmm…yet one more way our men are alike.  Lee has at least admitted that my taste in men improved significantly once I finally came to my senses and picked him – although I'm holding out hope that he will one day realize that I had good taste in men all along and was just waiting for his taste in women to catch up.  I don't think either Harm or Josh has grown up enough to realize that Mac and Donna are just waiting.

She doesn't go into specifics, but Josh's defense of her diary episode reminds me of the way Lee fought to defend me when an old photo from my college newspaper turned up during my background checks.  We finally proved the picture had been doctored, but for a while there I was thinking that only Lee – and maybe not even Lee – believed me.

We've gotten our coats on and are moving out toward the front gate of the embassy now.  I turn back to look at the building one more time, as I always do when I leave this place now.

"Hard to believe that the enemy is such a different thing after less than 15 years," Mac says softly.

"It was easier back then."  I surprise myself with that pronouncement, but it's true.

Donna nods.  "Yeah.  It was just 'us' and 'them', not 'us' and 'them' and 'them' and 'them'."

We laugh a little before Donna goes on to tell us about the 20 hours she spent with Josh and the Communications Director, Toby Ziegler, trying to get back to Washington during the campaign.  I think I know why Congresswoman Wyatt doesn't want to marry the father of her children.  Who wants to raise three children under two all at the same time when one can already talk back?

We're within sight of the bar when Donna tells us about Inauguration night.  She seems genuinely surprised that Josh monopolized her the whole night as she relates the story.  "And when I suggested that he needed to dance with CJ, Zoey, and Mrs. Bartlet, you'd have thought I asked him to strip naked and do the Chicken Dance."

We're all laughing at that image as Donna admits to being in love with Josh despite all the things he's done to drive her crazy through the years.  Mac and I can only nod in agreement.

We look at each other as Mac reaches for the handle of the outer door to the bar.  The thought crosses our lips at the same time:  

"It's hell raising men."

Fine 


End file.
